Weekly memory verse: “and love your neighbor as yourself”.
This weeks verse is actually not even a whole verse but I’ve been thinking about it lately, so I looked it up to see where it was located. Now I don’t want to forget, so I added it to my memory sheet.
In my mind, this verse has always been overlooked. I would think, “yeah, love other people and treat them as well as I do myself…okay, sure, that makes sense.” But the more I thought about it I wondered, “how much do I LOVE myself?” What if I really treated others the way I treat myself?
For instance, how many mornings do I go without breakfast, so I can fix my kids a healthy one? How many times have I finagled my day so that I can take them to the park to run and play, but I never have time to get on the treadmill? What if I talked to my children the way I do myself when I am beating myself up for something stupid that I did or said?
“Love your neighbor as yourself” actually implies that we should love ourselves. Take care of ourselves. Make ourselves a priority! I think our society tells us differently. “Put your kids first and revolve your whole life around them” is what I hear “good moms” do.
Today I had the entire day to myself. Savannah went home from school with Nanny and is spending the night. Emery stayed with Aunt Irene and I will be picking him up in about an hour. I had a huge list of things to do such as, grocery shopping and laundry, but choose instead to get my hair done and go to Jeremy’s office for lunch.
On Wednesday’s at noon he has started having Bible studies. Our Pastor talked about the word contentment. Mainly finding a balance (there’s that word again) between being content with what you have, yet not being content with where you are (meaning, personal growth, not where you live). I asked a question about my struggle with trying to be like Christ, especially in regards to parenting, and how being discontent can certainly help our ablility to grow, in my situation, I find it leading to frustration, which is not the joyful heart God desires for me.
Part of his answer comes right back to this whole loving yourself theme. He talked about the difficulty of raising young children and encouraged me to continue to seek out time to myself. He also reminded me that this is only a season of my life and I should try not to get too frustrated because it will not last forever. There was also something in there about getting my husband to fold laundry, but I won’t go into details! (ha!)
Basically both of these things today were a good reminder for me to take care of myself. Putting myself dead last only creates resentment towards those people I love the most. And how misleading is that? “I love you soooo much that I am going to exhaust myself taking care of you and giving you the best of everything, even to the point of being completely and utterly irritated by you.” Isn’t that what every child longs to hear their mother say?
2 Comments
You know what they say… your oxygen mask goes on first! If you’re not healthy and stable, you can’t be of much assistance to those around you!!! (You’re probably too focused on meditating by that point in the flight to have heard that…) :)
Glad you had a great day. You deserve it and so does your family!